Point of Order

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The Minister may wish to respond further to that point of order.

[Kit Malthouse]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me notice of his point of order. I have reviewed my words carefully and I do not believe I did, inadvertently or otherwise, mislead the House. He asked about the rescheduling of psilocybin, and I outlined general Government policy, which is—quite rightly—to follow MHRA authorisation on advice. He did not ask me about the law. His point on the law is, I believe, correct, but that is separate to the process of Government policy, which is to take advice on the rescheduling, or otherwise, or the use of substances, either medicinally or otherwise. I know he would not expect me to reschedule a hallucinogenic compound purely on his say so; he would expect me to do so following the examination of serious scientific advice, and that is what I was intending to communicate to him on the day.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record, and the Minister has responded. If further conversations need to take place, perhaps they could be outside the Chamber. This is obviously a complicated subject, and I suspect that even more detail could be entered into if we left it at that.